


Don't Judge a Pheonix by Their Flames (their claws are sharp and hidden)

by PizzaCanBePoetsToo



Category: Original Work
Genre: Extended Metaphors, Fairy Tale Elements, Implicit gore, Metaphor, No real violence, except not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 08:59:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5737582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PizzaCanBePoetsToo/pseuds/PizzaCanBePoetsToo





	Don't Judge a Pheonix by Their Flames (their claws are sharp and hidden)

Once upon a time, there was a poor peasant girl. Her parents had angered a great and terrible wizard long ago. The wizard had killed them shortly after the girl was born, and she grew up with her aunt and uncle. They made their living solidly, but still hated the girl for being another mouth to feed. But the girl was determined, and as soon as she was able, escaped from her prison.

  
Happily ever after? Not quite.

  
_The girl had no support. She struggled for a small grey apartment in a small grey life, working multiple jobs to stay alive. Sometimes she wondered if it was worth it._   
_The fairy tales never mentioned what happened to the girls who didn’t seduce the prince._

  
The wizard found out the girl was alive: a mistake he planned to fix. He had promised to eradicate everyone who cheated him (though he was a cheater himself), and what, dear reader, is a wizard without his oaths?

  
_When they were alive, her parents hadn’t always followed the law. Times were tough and a few borrowed bucks from sources best not questioned went a long way, at least until loans started piling up, and the Boss had enough. (The girl had survived due to a man who had only joined to support his own family [who died two months after for not being able to pull the trigger])_

  
The wizard’s army came, not expecting a fight.

  
_(Because she was weak and broken and a woman)._

  
But they underestimated her.

  
She had some spells of her own.

  
_When you have no life left to live, there is nothing to stop you from risking it all. And with nothing to hold her back…_

  
She bloomed.

  
The wizard never heard back from his soldiers, though it was a while before he thought to look for them _(what harm could a girl do?)_. But when he did think to look for them, all he found were legends; legends of a phoenix who wore the skin of a grey girl. Not the peaceful phoenixes of sunrises and second chances, but the fire birds with hardened souls that had seen too much. And when the girl of grey died, a phoenix ripped its way into the world with an enraged roar.

  
But that was what the legends said. And the wizard was not a superstitious man.

  
So when she came for him, all he saw was a slight smile of a mouse (then the bite of a dragon) and after that, all he could see was fire and red, so much red—  
(But don’t judge a phoenix by their flames—their claws are sharp and hidden.)

  
Or so the legends say. But we all know that legends and fairy tales are only fiction for small children.

  
Who’s left to say that she’s real, dear reader?

  
Who’s to say that she isn’t?


End file.
